


Storm

by silvergryphon



Category: Gargoyles (TV)
Genre: Gen, Owen really needs a cup of tea right about now, Post-Gathering, Puck has a temper, and Owen has to deal with it, female Puck, genderbent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-18
Updated: 2014-06-18
Packaged: 2018-02-05 05:46:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1807543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silvergryphon/pseuds/silvergryphon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shortly after being bound to Owen's form by a truly pissed off Oberon, Puck vents her feelings and Owen has to weather the storm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Storm

**Author's Note:**

> Short little drabble I did for an RP sample that I liked enough to post here. Not necessarily the exact same verse as Did You Say THAT Human Or That HUMAN?/ Diaryofawriter's Mazanett stories, but certainly compatible with them.

There was a storm raging around the Eyrie Building.

Not that this was anything really new. The tallest building in the world was quite naturally in the heart of many storms. The inhabitants of the castle at its peak were accustomed to them. Less than a week before, the Eyrie Building had quite literally been at the heart of one, when Oberon had assaulted its defenses in an effort to breach the castle and steal away an infant child. The rain and the cleaning crews had mostly washed away all signs of the attack, leaving Castle Wyvern once more the crowning jewel of the great skyscraper, restored and almost pristine.

The consequences of that battle could not so easily be erased.

At the top of the highest tower, a solitary figure stood, his navy blue suit whipped by the wind, glasses spotted and hair slicked to his head by the pouring rain. Owen Burnett stood in the heart of the storm, and his face showed no sign of emotion. Underneath the surface, however, there was a roiling sea of it.

Anger. Betrayal. Bitterness. Resentment. Grief that cut to the bone. And at the heart of it all was a restless, furious creature who wanted nothing more to come out and howl her rage to the heavens above.

And yet the Puck was trapped. Bound to the form of the mortal man she’d created, forbidden to emerge, to act, to be herself. Bound by a master who had turned arrogant and uncompassionate in the same span of time he’d ordered his Court to live amongst mortals to learn that very compassion and humility that he had rejected.

Puck’s furious yowl reverberated in Owen’s mind, and he stumbled forward, grasping at the stone crenelations of the parapet on which he stood. Even here, utterly alone and isolated, he tried not to express emotion, tried not to give voice to their shared pain and anger.

It was hard not to, when a creature thousands of years old was licking the wounds left by the master she’d once adored and served without question, when she held such a deep anger for what she saw as his betrayal, his refusal to bend, when she screamed and raged and cursed her master’s name and flung herself at the bars of her mental prison because of how badly his cold judgment had hurt her.

As a courtesy to her creation, though, Puck had bit back most of her pain and anger over the past few days, while Owen helped Mr Xanatos put things back together. She’d lurked quietly in the back of his mind, bottled up emotions steadily building up pressure until at last the initial work was done and neither could take it anymore.

Then they’d come up here, in the whipping wind and driving rain, to let Puck vent her temper in private.

Owen was fairly sure that the relatively minor squall that they’d walked out into had been whipped into a much greater fury just by Puck’s rage.

He leaned against the crenelations, shuddering a little, quiet echoes of Puck’s pain escaping his own throat, for he had no idea how long. He was certainly soaked to the skin and shivering a little in vague recognition of the cold by the time she had exhausted herself.

"Feeling better?" he murmured aloud, feeling about as drained as she did. He didn't fear anyone overhearing them. His quiet words were snatched away by the wind and rain almost the moment they left his lips.

She was quiet for a long moment, and Owen was beginning to think that she wasn’t going to reply, out of temper or just sheer contrariness when she finally spoke.

_"A little."_ The little fae’s voice was quiet and bone weary.

"Good." He kept his tone as gentle as he could. "I am sorry, Puck, for what’s come to pass. It wasn’t fair for him to bind you. Exile-"

_"Of course exile,"_ she grumbled. _"I could have managed that. The mortal world is more interesting than boring old Avalon."_

"Precisely. But to bind you was cruel. I wish things had turned out differently in that regard. But it hasn’t. You cannot just lose yourself in pain and resentment. He wins, that way, remember? You didn’t let him see how he hurt you when he pronounced judgment upon you, because that isn’t your way. We will carry on, and make the best of this as we may."

She always fell a little quiet when he said things like that, as if she couldn’t quite believe that it was a creature of her own making who would speak such logic.

_"You’re right,"_ she said at last. _"We’ll make this work. You know, you’re already more than you used to be. More… your own."_

His brow knit slightly at that. “Or maybe you’re wiser than you remember when you’re as upset as you are,” he suggested. “I am a part of you.”

_"And you’re becoming more than that."_

That was a frightening thought. He rather liked being what he was.

But the fact that he could even think that independently, feel a distant anxiety at the idea of changing… didn’t that mean he had already changed on some level? That he was more than just a face, a name, a role for the Puck to play? That he was, as she said, more his own?

He shivered and pushed the idea away.

"We’re going back inside," he said. "I’m going to make us some tea. You are going to start planning out Alexander’s first magic lessons." He glanced down at his hand, the cold stone fist that an apparently foolish display of blind loyalty- so an observer would have thought- had left him half-crippled with. "Might I recommend restoration spells? I would quite like my hand back since you never got around to fixing it before all of this nonsense."

Puck was quiet for a moment- and then she laughed. It was a tired, weak sort of laugh, the kind that could only come after all the negative emotions built up had been purged, but it was a laugh nonetheless, the first time she’d laughed since they’d heard Fox was in labor.

_"I think that’s an excellent idea, Owen. We’ll build him up to that as soon as we can."_

Owen smiled faintly, and went back inside.


End file.
